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Discussions on the history and historiography of Australia's New England

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Voices of cultural landscape

CHANGING WORLD: During the Last Glacial Maximum, the Tablelands' climate became sub-alpine, sub-glacial. Trees actually vanished in many cases, replaced by tundra. This is the sixth in a series discussing the deciphering of the mysteries of New England's Anaiwan or Nganjaywana Aboriginal language.

The theme
of this year’s NAIDOC Week celebrations has beenOur Languages Matter, celebrating the role that Aboriginal language plays in cultural
identity.

At the Uralla parade, Anaiwan elder Les
Townsend said that continuing the Anaiwan language was important to him. “We
have a lot of words, but we haven’t got the complete language yet.”

Uralla Shire Council Mayor Pearce said the
language was a connection to law, family, history, religion, childcare, health,
caring for country and more. “Each language is associated with an area of land
and has a deep spiritual significance.” (AE 5 July 2107)

Mayor Pearce is correct.

Each Aboriginal group had its own language
that linked with those around them like cells on a sheet of graph to form
dialects and then bigger language groups. Each language covered the totality of
human experience from the scared to the profane, from yarning around the camp
fire to the language of love and relationship to that attached to the most
important religious ceremonies.

Loss of language is a profound experience
because it represents loss not just of language, but of the culture and
tradition which that language expressed.

In this continuing series on the mystery of
the Anaiwan or Nganjaywana language, I have tried to interest you in the story
of one Aboriginal language, to bring one limited part of the past alive. I said
in my last column that I would conclude the series by looking at the reasons
why Anaiwan changed to the point that that many considered it to be a totally
separate language.

The account that follows is necessarily
speculative, open to challenge.

The first Aboriginal settlers reached the
continent called Sahul perhaps 50,000 years ago. By 30,000 years, they had
spread across the entire continent, although total population numbers may not
have been high by later standards.

Those first settlers experienced benign
condition. Sea levels fluctuated greatly during the long Pleistocene period.
Forty thousand years ago, sea levels were perhaps 50 metres below current
levels, creating a broader coastal plain. Rainfall was high, temperatures
moderate. Rivers running east and west from the Tablelands would have carried
substantial volumes of water.

From perhaps 25,000 years ago, the local
environment began to deteriorate becoming very dry and both intensely hot and
intensely cold. This climatic regime peaked during what is called the Last
Glacial Maximum, 21,000 to 15,000 years ago.

The sea retreated to perhaps 120 metres
below current levels. It became colder, 2-4 degrees C below current levels. On
land, mean monthly temperatures probably fell by 6-10 degrees C. Extensive
inland dune building suggests that the climate become much windier.

The Tablelands area that would become the
territory of the Anaiwan became sub-alpine, sub-glacial, in spots. It seems
almost certain that the human population would have had to retreat.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 12 July 2017. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here 2017.

Keep Belshaw writing

Research and writing takes time and money. Contributions welcome to help me maintain an independent voice.

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Blog Objectives - and a warning to readers

This blog aims to consolidate and extend New England historical material originally carried on the main New England Australia site. With time, I hope that it will develop into a living history of New England.

Readers should be warned, however, that the original posts are work in progress. This means that ealier posts may have been overtaken by later research or thought. I have to go through and do some updates and cross-links, but this is a slow process.